Provided by Research Papers in Economics
The Changing Relationship Between Federal,
State And Local Governments
Timothy J. Penny
University of Minnesota
In his 1996 State of the Union speech, President Clinton boldly proclaimed that
the “era of big government is over.” Clinton was not so much announcing his own
policy as acknowledging a reality he had little choice but to accept.
Measured from several perspectives, it is undeniable that the trend toward
centralized government—begun with the New Deal and accelerated by the Great
Society—has run its course. As evidenced by anti-incumbent voting patterns in
recent elections, public attitudes toward the federal government clearly have turned
sour. Trust in the government is at a low level. Federal budget deficits have limited
the federal government’s ability to respond to social needs. The arteries of the federal
government have been clogged. Entitlement spending has crowded out other domestic
initiatives, leaving us with a government that overpromises and underdelivers.
In a related vein, creative new leaders have been elected at the state and local
levels. Republican governors and mayors have replaced Democrats in response to
voter desire to attempt new approaches to problems that have not been adequately
addressed by Democratic solutions.
Let us take a closer look at these developments.
As compared to 30 years ago, public trust in government has declined
dramatically. Today, fewer than 20 percent of voters express confidence in the
government to “do the right thing most of the time.” Thirty years ago nearly 80
percent of all voters trusted the government to do the right thing.
I believe that among the causes is a factor known as hyperpluralism. As defined
by Jonathan Rausch in his book Demosclerosis, hyperpluralism results when too
many groups come to think of government only in terms of what benefit they can
secure from the public treasury. An explosion of government programs, particularly
since the 1960s, has created interest-group politics. Groups are making demands on
government—many of which are meritorious when examined individually, but break
the bank when aggregated.
Rausch explains that this hyperpluralism leads to a clogging of the arteries of
government. He writes, “The trouble, though, is that in today’s world each program
instantly generates an interest group and each interest group lobbies to keep its own
program open, drumming up campaign contributions and producing stacks of studies
‘proving’ the program’s success. In the end, we get stuck with all [of the] programs